Last Shot
by Snoodle
Summary: Brent and Stuart Tarleton find that the war doesn't quite live up to their expectations. (Character death. Two of them, in fact.)


Brent Tarleton brushed his wavy red hair out of his eyes and with the other hand, fitted his round grey cap onto his head. He admired his reflection in the mirror above the washbasin. The uniform he had been given fit him well, emphasizing his broad shoulders and muscular chest. "Well, Stuart," he said, "do you suppose there have ever been two fellows looking so fine in the whole of the South?"   
  
"No, sir," Stuart said, "not even Jefferson Davis in his grand ballroom best ever looked so keen."   
  
"Top rail," Brent concluded. "And how about these pistols?" He grabbed it quickly from its holster and pulled it into an easy one-handed grip, eye level and two feet away from his face. "Oiled and slick."   
  
Stuart drew his own pistol and mimicked Brent's position. "Say, the middle pane of that window yonder."   
  
Brent shot. The pane collapsed in a shower of broken glass. "Say, the green peach hanging off the tree yonder."   
  
Stuart shot. The peach exploded in pulp and pit. "'Tain't a trouble shooting thing that hold still," he complained.   
  
"Yeh," Brent agreed. "Can't wait until we get out and shoot some Yanks."   
  
"Right," Stuart said.   
  


*

  
_Two Months Later_  
  
"Stuart?" Brent called. The field was dark with ash, smoke, and dirt. "Stuart!" Musketshot rang around him and he stumbled on the gravelly earth. He hit the ground, hard. Brent felt his cheek and knuckles hurt, dully; he had taken a lot of skin off. He didn't care. "Stuart!" he yelled again, desperately.   
  
Stuart might be calling for him, on the other side of the field, or he might be reloading his pistol and firing at a Yankee doughboy, or he might be lying somewhere with grapeshot in his leg. If it were either of the last two, Brent wouldn't worry. Stuart could handle his own, and no matter the injury, the twins had taken worse from Cade Calvert and Tony Fontaine. But to be searching for his brother and not be able to find him: this was the most terrible thing that could happen to either of the Tarleton boys. They had never been apart for more than a day at a time; separation was intolerable to both.   
  
Through the dark clouds of smoke that suffused the field, Brent caught a familiar fringe of red hair below a uniform grey cap. "Stuart!" he hollered, and began coughing. The other boy turned, and Brent took off his own cap and waved it frantically.   
  
A volley of fire rang out around Brent, and he dropped his cap, covered his head, and dived for the ground. The gunshots nearest him ceased, and he lifted his head to look for his brother.   
  
Stuart lay not ten feet away. His eyes were open, and Brent noticed as he crawled toward him that Stuart was breathing in quick, shallow gasps. His hair was matted and his face dark with blood and grime.   
  
"Aw, hell," Stuart whispered when Brent was close enough to hear, "we're really in a fix, ain't we?"   
  
"We really are," Brent said, "but we've been in worse fixes before, ain't we?"   
  
Stuart laughed and winced. "God damn, yes," he said with feeling. "Why, do you remember the day when you got lickered up and shot Ma's brand new Atlanta hat through the top?"   
  
"Do I ever," Brent said. "She lit into me like she was one of the house darkies and I was a possum in the back porch. Though that wasn't near as bad as when you and Alex Fontaine were brawling in the parlour nigh midnight and woke the whole house up."   
  
Stuart coughed weakly. "God damn," he said again. Brent saw the blood on his brother's grey uniform and realized for the first time how close to dying Stuart was. Brent reached for Stuart's hand and clasped it tightly in his own. "Stuart-" he began, but the other boy closed his eyes and let his head drop onto the rocks and dirt below him. "Stuart," Brent said again, and this time it was almost a sob. "Stuart Stuart Stuart Stuart Stuart Stuart Stuart Stuart..."   
  
Another volley of grapeshot silenced him.   
  


*  
  
"Hey, Brent!" Stuart calls, and laughs. He rides a horse as red as his hair, and Brent sees an identical horse waiting behind him.   
  
They are in Georgia; Brent knows they are in Georgia, although he has never seen this place before. It is the red earth and blue sky, the shade of the trees and the turn of the hills that is unique to the Deep South. A fox scurries in the undergrowth, and from beyond the greenest hill comes the pleasant pealing of yapping hounds.   
  
"Race you to the edge and back," Stuart says, "if there is an edge."   
  
Brent mounts the horse meant for him. "One, two, three," he counts off, and the two boys are off, riding low with the wind blowing their hair in their eyes. They splash through crystal streams and thunder over warm earth, and as Brent lifts his head to shout with sheer and unbearable joy, he hears Stuart beside him crying out the same.


End file.
